"outfront" tonight, mark potoch is author of the report and senior fellow at the law center. john avlon is cnn contributor and author of "wing nuts, how the lunatic fringe is hijacking america" which is a suitable title for our discussion tonight. thanks to all of you. mark, let me start with you. you are the author of the report. it focuses on so-called patriot groups which you describe as conspiracy-minded anti-government and on the radical right. in 2012, you looked at 1360 so-called patriot groups on the radical right, an increase of 813% since 2008 right before president obama took office. but lots of questions are coming up today about how you define these groups. give me some sense of how you define these patriot extremist right wing groups. >> sure, ali. what the groups are are the very same groups that we all used to call the militia groups back in the 1990s. they more normally describe themselves as patriot organizations or christian patriot organizations. you know, essentially what holds these groups together, what kind of makes them a movement, is that they all su